I was a Quality Manager in a large Government department for a while over a decade ago, so I have an interest whenever Governments start making noises about renewed efforts to drive out public sector inefficiency. I’ve heard it all before, of course, but this time it’s seems to be different. This time failure seems like its not an option

The old obstacles are still there, though. The main one being that the systems are not actually designed to be efficient. That is no comment on the will, commitment or talent of the people who work there, you understand, but just on the way the system is set up. It is unintentionally designed to resist efficiency. I will elaborate

There are significant features of public sector systems that make them resist efficiency

• The way budgets are set up and managed
• The system is designed to try and protect its own equilibrium

Budget underspend is a problem not an achievement

As a manager I had a budget. I was given that budget at the start of the year and told to make it last. So I did. I knew that I’d be in trouble if I overspent. I also knew I’d cause myself a headache if I underspent. So I did neither. I, like all of my peers, made it last. This was generally achieved by a combination of two quarters of cautionary spending, followed by two quarters of progressively care-free spending (depending on how much I had left and how quickly I had to get rid of it). If I didn’t spend my budget I knew I’d get less next year, and I didn’t want that if I could avoid it, especially as there was no reward in it for me for giving anything back, and it would only give my staff a harder time next year. So why would I try and save? Who would?

The status quo is the safest option

Every two or three months I would be asked by the Chief Executive (via his secretary of course) for some “words on quality” for his ministerial briefing. It was my job to make sure he had plenty to talk about, so we did a lot of things on Investors in People, EFQM, Chartermark etc. I don’t want to sound big-headed, but I have a way with words and I could make these activities sound pretty impressive – I knew what they wanted to hear. No-one ever asked me to justify anything or put numbers on anything (god forbid), so the “quality improvements” it could have been argued, were almost entirely cosmetic – smoke and mirrors. And that, at the time, was good enough. No-one really wanted any of these improvement projects to put anyone’s nose out of joint, so we were channeled towards safe territory. We redesigned forms, we moved photocopiers to reduce travel time, that type of thing. We never did anything like ask “You see that fellow over there? What does he get paid? More to the point, what does he actually do?”  I’ve since heard it called “the elephant in the room” syndrome. Things like identifying underloaded jobs, or over-staffed departments would cause managerial problems and we didn’t need go round creating any of those. Provided we showed a bit of willing, we’d be left alone. That meant the equilibrium of the system was not upset. No-one lost their jobs, had their budgets cut or anything like that. So no-one complained. Then after a while the Government as usual got distracted by something else and we were completely off the hook for a while. You could buy a lot of time with great anecdotes …

Things might be different this time round. I get the impression that this time words will be no good. They’ll need deeds, and deeds with numbers attached. Governments are spent up and need to make some savings to off-set all of those so-called “financial stimuli”. Consequently the option of cosmetic improvement may well be removed this time round, and kicking things into the long grass may prove more difficult

That made me think. If I was a manager in the public sector right now, what would I do? It’s a fair bet that “quality improvement” and “efficiencies” may well become the buzz-words once again, but would I try to steal a march right now and put myself ahead of the game? Score some early points maybe? I’m not sure I would

It could actually work against me. I could end up with the worst of both worlds if I made my savings before I was asked. The big risk would be that I’d make my command a lot leaner, but then this new “lean” position would be used as my starting baseline and I could be asked to deliver yet more on top of that, with no credit being given for my earlier voluntary endeavors. Better I sat and waited till I was ordered to do it, I might decide. That way I’d have more scope to find improvements with it being in its current inefficient state

Now all of those features and quirks I’ve described might sound just plain wrong, immoral even, considering its public money we’re dealing with. But that is the way the system is set up. Don’t blame the people. You would do exactly as they do in the same position – I guarantee that. It will be interesting to see if the new reality acknowledges that the way systems behave are generally down to the way they are designed

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Public Sector Quality Improvement

How many people really understand “root cause”? How many people really make a serious attempt to apply clause 8.5.2c of ISO 9001 in the correct spirit? How many auditors (presumably for a quiet life) are quite prepared to be complicit in this charade?

These questions and more are considered by Mike Mickelwright in this funny little video clip. We ALL know what he is talking about, right?

Click here to view the embedded video.

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Top Ten Unacceptable Corrective Actions

ISO 9001, that part of the ISO 9000 series that defines the quality management system requirements, clearly means many things to many people. There are certainly people with a vested interest in promoting its virtues and (sometimes) overstating its merits in the process. There are also some very vociferous opponents, including some career critics who have made a good living from slagging it off. But let’s try to be objective, (whilst simultaneously declaring an obvious interest in the its continued existence)

Why do people seek registration?
Check out this thread for some contributions. The simple inarguable truth is that most registered organisations seek registration to meet the requirements of an important customer, or an important prospect. It basically allows the company to bid for work they would otherwise be excluded from, as the customer has defined it as a condition to supply. Is this right? Well, we’ve talked about this in the past. The customer is king, if he says “jump!” we should all say “how high?”

Interestingly, when the benefits of ISO 9001 registration are debated, most people launch into often unquantified justifications revolving around control, conformity and efficiency themes, almost as if doing it mainly because the customer wants it is somehow something to be ashamed of. The fact that it opens doors economically is often overlooked. This obvious economic advantage of offering access to more contracts has to be a major benefit, and “quality guys” should not be afraid of recognising it

Is it a mark of excellence?
Some people might claim that it is but they are just plain wrong. There may well be a decent set of good business practices woven into that clumsy and badly written document, but the requirements set out in ISO 9001 are no more than a base line. Successful certification indicates that the bones of a documented QMS is in place, it is auditable and it is supported by a basic set of management processes and, if we’re lucky, a PDCA theme running through it. The company may be a million miles from world class and may even be going steadily out of business at the same time. So I’m saying, in quality terms, it’s no more than our starter for ten

Why the confusion then?
The ten thousand dollar question, but I can offer a personal opinion. From my own personal experience I find that quality guys don’t speak the language of business, and business guys don’t speak the jargon of quality. That means strategic, commercial and quality people often have parallel agendas and, because the communication and transparency are poor within the processes (the principle that we should all be seeking the same end result, a successful business), is lost in the ensuing conflict and battle for resources. How often do we hear the QA department moaning about poor top management commitment to quality? Time for a common language and a clear focus on what is important to the business and the customer, whichever way we want to badge it up

A business approach to managing quality
Another favourite theme, but let’s expand on it a little this time by exploring the cost of quality in economic terms. Quality, generally, is defined as “the degree to which a set of inherent characteristics fulfills requirements” or “conformity to requirements” or a variation on that theme. Often “quality” is stated only in product conformity terms, as if that was the only thing that mattered to the customer and, as a consequence, the lower the level of functional defects, the better things are. However there comes a point at which investing in conformity related improvements does not yield any economic benefits. Eventually we reach a point at which (at the current price) we offer the customer a tolerable level of defect, a lower rate of defect may come at a price that the customer is not prepared to pay. So “better quality” (in this situation) increases the chances the customer will seek a cheaper provider, possibly one with an inferior defect rate. So examining the likelihood of repeat business only from a conformity and defect rate perspective is a dangerous mistake to make. Customers care about lots of things. Once the level of defects is tolerable they start to care more about other things. After sales service, response times, ease of dealing with, user-friendliness of contact systems, flexibility, image even. If these are important to the customer, then they become the new conformity

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The real benefits of ISO 9001 certification

ISO 9001 is a generic, one size fits all standard. Designed to be equally applicable to a service organisation as to a manufacturing organisation. That’s the claim anyway, but it’s not quite right. Whilst it may be applicable to service organisations, the claim that this is a significant “design” consideration doesn’t quite ring true. Anyone who has skimmed ISO 9001 once will twig that pretty quickly. It’s literally peppered with manufacturing terminology from start to end. If it is to be applied effectively in a service organisation, some nifty interpretation and common-sense application is called for. Here are a couple of pointers around some “classic” trouble spots

Section 7: Product Realisation
Now here’s a term that’s not even in heavy use in manufacturing. Ask someone to tell you about their “Planning of Product Realisation (clause 7.1)” and more often than not you’ll get nothing more than a vacant expression and maybe some mutterings suggesting you’d better talk to QA about it. Ask them to talk to you about their approach to production planning on the other hand … Ahhhhh! Production planning!

With a service organisation it’s not quite so straightforward, but the solution is the same – just a simple case of word substitution. Here’s the trick – wherever you see the words “Product Realisation” (Yuk) – just substitute the term “Service Delivery” and hey presto! It works. That means clause 7.1 becomes “Planning of Service Delivery” and it covers our deliveries, shift patterns, hours of work, scheduling of work, roles and responsibilities etc etc. And so it carries on throughout section 7. Easy

Clause 8.3 Control of non-conforming product
This term is lifted straight from its manufacturing origin where it still makes perfect sense, but it translates less easily (surprise surprise) when we attempt to apply it to foreign territory – service industries

In order to understand it better, we need to be clear about what it means historically. Basically in manufacturing applications you make things and every now and again you’ll identify through your product inspections and tests that you’ve made a wrong ‘un. Clearly we don’t want this defective item boxed and packed off to the customer, so we need some sort of procedure by which we identify it and put it safely to one side while we decide if it can be salvaged, or if we have to scrap it. This is commonly known as the “Quarantine Procedure”. All manufacturing facilities will have something akin to a “Quarantine Area” which, at various times will be populated by sorry items waiting to learn their fate. So let’s be clear about one thing. Clause 8.3 is not a procedure for “control of non-conformities” – it is a procedure for a special type of non-conformity where we need to apply some sort of isolation or STOP! to the process. Not all non-conformities require a STOP! as such. For example complaints may require corrective action, but they may not initiate any sort of isolation activity, so we need a broader “Corrective Action” procedure (or procedures) to define what we do with other kinds of problems

So what happens if you don’t make “stuff”? You can’t isolate something that is intangible like a service. Well, yes you can, just not in the same way. If you are a service provider, your product is your service – you may provide financial or legal advice for instance – and these services need to be fit for purpose and do what they’re supposed to. Now it could be that somehow we discover that our service is not doing what it’s supposed to – our financial advice may be out of date and it could fail to take into consideration some new piece of legislation for instance. In that instance we’ve got to take that service off-line till we sort it out. That would be our “quarantine procedure”

It takes some thinking through in some cases, but think it through we must, as I’m sure many of you old hands will have spotted, it’s one of those areas where a procedure is MANDATORY

Lesson over. Hope this helps

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The application of ISO 9001 to service organisations

Today I have had a eureka moment. Something has become clear to me, and I feel compelled to let you all in on it

About a month ago I published an article on this blog entitled “Why doesn’t the quality community get it?”. The article was subsequently re-published by the Chartered Quality Institute (CQI) on their site, to a mixed reception it has to be said. The article was provocative to say the least. In it I suggested that the reason so many “quality professionals” struggle to obtain the elusive “top management commitment” was because they make little attempt to meet management half-way and understand basic business dynamics and realities. I suggested that many within the “quality community” could do worse than to take a look at themselves as a starting point if they wanted to change the situation

You only have to take a look at some of the comments on the CQI site to note how quickly denial kicked in. I was running a serious risk of rubbing the old guard up the wrong way, but those of you know know me well will understand that the possibility of that was never going to bother me

Anyway, time has moved on, and today I have been involved in an on-line discussion that was originally centred on comparing ISO 9001 with TQM. The discussion somehow evolved into one about efficiency and effectiveness, and this was where I had my epiphany. During the course of the discussion two things became apparent

1. Many practitioners considered that efficiency had little, if anything, to do with ISO 9001, and consequently was outside of the remit of the quality department

2. A lot of quality people did not even understand what the term “efficiency” actually means

To illustrate my second point I’ll use the example that one contributor stated that efficiency was about “doings things right”. Well it isn’t. That is closer to the definition of effectiveness. Efficiency and effectiveness are not the same thing

What is efficiency?

The term efficiency has meaning in a range of contexts, not just quality. Here are a couple of definitions from the worlds of physics, economics and lastly from quality

Efficiency in physics

“The ratio of the effective output compared to the total input within a system”

Efficiency in economics

“Situation in which it is impossible to generate a larger total from the available resources”

Efficiency in ISO 9000

“Relationship between the result achieved and the resources used”

All of these definitions say more or less the same thing, that a state of efficiency compares what you get out to what you put in. A highly efficient system, therefore, is one that produces the most conforming output items for a given input

Efficiency is NOT about “doing it right”

When politicians claim that a public sector department is inefficient, they are not claiming that they can’t do their job. They are suggesting that the department costs more to run than it should. They are claiming that there is too much waste in the system. That if the department was more efficient, then we’d be getting a similar output, but we’d not need to spend so much to get it

Now, there are two things that amaze me when it comes to some “quality” people

1. Just how few appear to have grasped this fairly simple and fundamental concept

2. Many quality professionals do not see “efficiency” as part of their brief in any way

Understanding this has been my eureka, my blinding flash. Now everything is clear to me. Now I understand why many quality professionals fail to engage senior management and turn them on to quality. The fact is that if senior management were to try and run a business using the narrow view of quality adopted by many quality types, we’d be closing the doors in no time

Businesses have to be efficient. If they are inefficient, they become uncompetitive. They may be able to produce conforming and functioning goods, but they can’t make any money in the process. Call me obtuse, but if I was a senior manager and I had a quality manager that had not grasped that basic concept, and had not looked at how his “quality strategy” could help me make a decent margin, I’d not have much time for the guy either

When Philip Crosby suggested that quality people needed to speak the language of the boardroom in order to be effective, he wasn’t throwing in a disposable sound bite, he was succinctly making an incredibly important point. In fact if I was a CEO who had a quality manager who did not think that efficiency was part of his job, I’d be looking for a new quality manager within five minutes

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Quality and efficiency

Summary of changes, ISO 9001:2000 to ISO 9001:2008

ISO 9001:2008 auditor transition training by distance learning

Capable People is an IRCA approved training organisation. If you want to formalise your CPD to ISO 9001;2008, you can follow our distance learning program. Every learner gets individual feedback and a hard copy certificate

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ISO 9001: 2008 – Summary of changes

I, for one, get really frustrated when I review some audit surveillance reports. ISO 9001 is a management standard, with a range of different requirements, all of which need to be sampled in order for a reliable decision on the degree of conformance to be made. But the thing that continually annoys (but doesn’t surprise) me is the weighting that certain auditors put on to different requirements. There is a common pattern of distorted priorities that make me wonder whether some auditors have any comprehension of what matters and what doesn’t

Over-audited clauses

5.3 Quality Policy

OK, it’s a requirement, part of the standard, so conformance needs to be assessed, but frankly this should take ten minutes flat, especially considereing the bulk of conformance matters should have been picked up at stage 1. In any case, even in the event of a non-conformance on this element, the impact, consequences and risk of that non-conformance are never going to be earth-shattering, there’s never any justification for audit ad nausiem and/or a lap of honour around any non-conformances found. Get a life!

7.6 Control of monitoring and measuring equipment

The calibration system in other words. Part of the system, yes, complicated, no. This should not consume an inordinate amount of audit time. Even if a decent sample is taken, assessment of conformance or otherwise should be a quick and straightforward matter

6.2.2 Competence Awareness and Training

In my experience this rarely goes beyond looking at training records. Why? Because it’s easy and you always find something. Sitting in HR, opening up a few files with a nice pot of tea etc etc … this is the life. But what about “competence and awareness”? How often do these aspects get an appropriate level of air-time? These harder, trickier issues that you can only assess by getting your head round the activities and getting out into the workplace, observing, questioning, triangulating the evidence (too much like hard work? – you’d think). Getting back to training records, here’s a tip that should reduce the volume of time that you’ll need to devote to this topic – leave it till last

In terms of technique, if we leave the assessment of training records till last, all we need do as the audit progresses is to make a note of all of those people we see driving FLTs, working at height, using abrasive wheels, etc etc and then hand our list in to HR towards the end of the audit with the simple request “get me those training records” – what could be simpler and, more to the point, more reliable?

8.2.2 Internal Audits

This is quite important, always gets audited, but often not that well. The auditor may check for a plan, check its up to date, check the ncrs are closed out, maybe check training records for the auditors, fair enough, but how often do they:

• check the quality, depth and rigour of the audits?
• check the appropriateness of the corrective actions or the efficiency of the implementation?
• check the strategic use of audit information as an aid to future planning?
• check to see whether the performance of processes is assessed in any way?

Never mind, so long as we can tick off the easy stuff, we have evidence of cosmetic conformance. that’s enough, right?

Under-audited clauses

There has to be yin and yang in every system, so there are always be some under audited elements that add balance to the audit plan. Here’s my list of classic under-audited areas of the standard

8.2.3 Monitoring and measurement of processes

When was the last time anyone actually witnessed a conscious and structured assessment of this requirement? Not only is it under-audited, in my experience, it is roundly ignored. Process measures are usually measures of efficiency. Efficiency is part of ISO 9001, don’t you know, as well as conformance. When is this ever assessed? EVER?

It does not happen

5.4.2 Quality Management System Planning

This is more than having a schedule for internal audits and management review. Take a look at clause 5.4.2a really carefully. Do you see it now? We need a plan to support the implementation of the quality objectives. How often does an auditor hold the organisation responsible for the “P” is PDCA? Well, sometimes – I’m being kind – certainly not often enough, with organisations being allowed to offer the wooliest and most aspirational objectives you could imagine, without ever being held accountable for managing them through to a tangible conclusion

8.5.1 Continual improvement

Fair enough we’ll often see a cosmetic walk through of the various elements of the clause 8.5.1 (audits, MR, corrective actions etc) but when are we ever held accountable for joining them all up into a cohesively managed CI process? Not often I’ll bet

8.5.3 Preventative Action

My personal favourite. In QMS terms it is equivalent to Risk Assessment in an OHS context. It is that fundamental. But beyond holding the organisation accounatble for producing something that can loosely be described as its “mandatory documented procedure” the audit rarely goes any deeper. Is that right? Well, take a look at ISO 9004 if you need guidance. ISO 9004 actually describes the intended direction and application of Preventative Action pretty well. Here’s an excerpt:

“To involve people, top management should create an environment where authority is delegated so that people are
empowered and accept responsibility to identify opportunities where the organization can improve its performance.
This can be achieved by activities such as:

– setting of objectives for people, projects and the organization,
– benchmarking competitor performance and best practice,
– recognition and reward for achievement of improvement, and
– suggestion schemes including timely reaction by management

To provide a structure for improvement activities, top management should define and implement a process for
continual improvement that can be applied to realization and support processes and activities. To ensure the
effectiveness and efficiency of the improvement process, consideration should be given to realization and support
processes in terms of:
– effectiveness(such as outputs meeting requirements),
– efficiency (such as resources per unit in terms of time and money),
– external effects (such as statutory and regulatory change),
– potential weakness (such as lack of capability and consistency),
– the opportunity to employ better methods,
– control of planned and unplanned change, and
– measurement of planned benefits”

Now I can’t say that I have ever witnessed a third party auditor assessing clause 8.5.3 in this way. Why? Who knows

Anyway, as a means of wrapping up this article and to form some sort of point, it may be that there is not too much actually wrong with the requirements of this standard, as such, but possibly plenty wrong with the way that it is used. We could do better than start doing things properly and then see how much added credibility the certification industry achieves. Just a thought

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ISO 9001 – Over and under audited clauses

Last week I published a review of ISO 9004:2009. In it I noted just how “EFQM” it was. That sparked a short exchange between Mark Harbor and I on Twitter about the merits of the EFQM self-assessment approach and the limitations of the typical ISO 9001 audit-driven approach. Something from that debate concerned me and it was a while before I could put my finger on what it was. Now I think I have

It is my firm belief that when we compare EFQM and ISO 9001 the strength of one framework is the weakness of the other and vice versa. In other words, what one framework does well, the other does badly, and the match is almost a perfect negative

In this post I’m going to try to explain exactly what I mean by that

My history with EFQM and ISO

My involvement with each model goes well beyond academia. Those of you who know me from Capable People will be aware that I’ve been training ISO 9001 lead auditors for about ten years, however prior to that, in a past life (in the 1990s) I worked extensively with the EFQM Model. I assessed on numerous occasions for the UK Excellence Award and the North East Excellence Award, trained assessors for the North East Excellence Award on a couple of occasions, and also got involved in upwards of 50 internal EFQM self-assessments for various organisations. It is from these direct experiences that I draw my conclusions

The reason I found it necessary to describe my battle scars, particularly with regard to the EFQM Model, is simply because it works so well on paper. If you’d never been through the pain of self-assessment, and suffered the frustration of post-assessment inertia, you’d never guess it had a single fault … but it does

The strengths of the EFQM approach

Frankly the EFQM approach has a few faults, but let’s start with the strengths, because the glass might just be half-full. I’ll try and list them;

• Its criteria covers strategic processes in far more detail than ISO 9001
• It does the “systems approach” better too
• Its criteria are “weighted” and identify that some processes are more critical than others (which they are)
• It does “leadership” in a more detailed and academically sound way
• It makes a more concerted effort to direct assessors to identify cause and effect relationships (sometimes in vain of course, but it tries, nonetheless)
• It includes financial/business results and some financial processes within its criteria (not simply “quality”)
• It directs assessors to examine the integrity and breadth of “results” in a better way, including an appreciation of direct and indirect measures, and the benefit of a balanced range of metrics
• It actually has criteria that support the “Involvement of People” quality principle
• EFQM self assessment is surprisingly good fun, if you like that sort of thing

The weaknesses of the EFQM approach

Although it has strengths it does have its significant weaknesses or, in EFQM language, Areas For Improvements (AFIs). These are what I consider have always been the most significant ones;

• The use of documented evidence or the requirement to provide “proof” (as opposed to testimony) within the self-assessment process is usually limited
• Although the criteria, in theory, covers strategic issues, financial measures and results, the output from assessment will only ever be as good as the inputs allow. In my experience of going through numerous assessments, there is an almost universal reluctance from the senior team to allow unfettered access to this sensitive information “warts and all”. Therefore the principle of “Garbage In – Garbage Out” (GIGO) usually applies
• Although the criteria includes financial performance, it does not do it in sufficient enough detail to allow a realistic assessment of the sustainability of the business. Assessors may well look at how budgets are allocated and managed, which is a good thing in itself, but sustainability is the $10,000 question. Consequently there have been numerous examples of award winners getting into commercial difficulties a very short time after receiving an EFQM based award. It could therefore be argued that the model awards a deceptively high score for companies that are going out of business albeit in an “excellent” way. This feature may well partially explain why it seems to have retained its popularity a little longer within the public sector in the UK. In this sector financial management more or less is management of budgets, and the issue of commercial sustainability is not really a factor in the mix
• The assessment does not identify any clear “rights” and “wrongs” – just a set of “coulds” and “could do betters”. Fair enough, you might think, but in my experience that almost always leads to strangulation of the process by inertia once the assessment is complete. Typically the assessment will yield upwards of 150 strengths and 150 AFIs, with no direction on priorities (that is for the company to decide). The problem is that this wealth of data  usually completely overwhelms the organisation and brings the process of improvement via self assessment to a sudden stop. You can have too much information
• The process, done properly, is incredibly hungry on resources and often struggles to satisfy even the briefest of cost versus benefit analysis

I must confess that between the years 1994-1999 there was no bigger disciple of EFQM than I. However, after a few years, Groundhog Day well and truly kicked in. I looked back over the fifty or so assessments that I’d been involved in and struggled to identify even a small hand full that had delivered real improvements. That is, improvements that I felt the organisation could not have identified anyway, simply by intuition. The fact was that most companies already knew fine well what their biggest problems were before the process began, and I could see in the faces of many a senior manager during the assessor feedback an expression that suggested “this is an expensive way of telling us what we already knew”. I’ve heard senior teams criticised on numerous occasions for a lack of “buy-in” or “commitment”, but sometimes you need to see things from their perspective. After a while I found myself asking, hand on heart, “is this an effective use of so much resource?”

My biggest criticism, however, is that these weaknesses have existed within the EFQM framework for almost 20 years. They are actionable, but the guardians of the model have done little to resolve them. Is that continuous improvement?

EFQM and ISO 9001

Each framework having more or less the exact opposite strengths and weaknesses actually carries a thick irony – the solutions are staring us in the face. To be fair, there has been some movement on the ISO 9001 side to incorporate some of the EFQM strengths. This was seen most obviously when ISO 9000:2000 was published. The under-pinning “8 principles of quality management” were introduced, as were some new EFQM-influenced criteria, most notably Customer Satisfaction and Continual Improvement. However, to my eyes, this was done in a very superficial and even a clumsy way. The clauses were brief and ill defined, leading to a large degree of elasticity in the way the are applied. Now we also have ISO 9004:2009, which moves even further in the EFQM direction. However, in Mark’s words, “does it ever deliver truly strategic information?” Probably not

And ISO 9001 does have its strengths

There is clear potential for a meeting of minds between the frameworks. For all its weaknesses, ISO 9001 has the inarguable strength that it requires auditability and proof. An ISO 9001 audit may not be strategic but, done properly, it should at least be factual, reliable and performed in a reasonably cost-effective way. ISO 9001 systems also usually benefit from two levels of independent scrutiny and regulation (again maybe not perfect but its there). Plus ISO 9001 certification is worldwide and widespread and it has found a way (by fair means or foul) to role out a commercially viable model and system of assessment

The conclusion? Put both frameworks in a blender and turn it on. We might just end up with a half-decent smoothie

3rd December 2009: Update to this article

Matt Fisher posted a very useful comment to this post yesterday and told us that the most recent EFQM revision has taken some of these issues on board

Here’s a link to a press release on the subject, from EFQM

The criteria has in fact been expanded with regard to sustainability. On a first review it does appear to relate to environmental as opposed to economic sustainability (profitability in other words), which was the weakness to which I was referring in my post

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EFQM and ISO 9001 – A comparison of approaches

Here’s a round up of a few ISO 9001 posts from the past couple of years that I think will be most useful for people feeling their way with the standard, or perhaps wondering if it is right for them

ISO 9001 a short overview – a pocket sized summary of ISO 9001 requirements

Permissible exclusions explained – a summary of what can be excluded and under what circumstances

ISO 9001 & continual improvement – what the standard needs with regard to the improvement process

ISO 9001 and the process approach – the process approach explained

Quality Policy and Objectives – what you need to know to get these right

The real benefits of ISO 9001 – don’t listen to consultants. They have a vested interest and half of them have no idea about the economic realities of running a business. Here’s the low down

ISO 9001 for service providers - a translation of the jargon for my beloved followers in the service sector. You are the future

ISO 9001 Internal Auditing – a summary of what you need to know to implement an effective audit program

Changes ISO 9001:2000 to ISO 9001:2008 – a summary and explanation of these largely cosmetic and wholly disappointing set of changes

A comparison of ISO 9001 and EFQM approaches – useful for anyone wondering whether EFQM can help deliver the “next step”

You’ll find even more on these themes by browsing the ISO 9000 category in the left side bar. But these will give any new starters a a decent low down. Hope you find it useful

If you have any further questions, you can contact me here

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Beginner’s guide to ISO 9001

As an IRCA registered training provider I get regular updates from the IRCA regarding their thoughts about how things should move forward in the future. Right now, not before time, the QMS Lead Auditor exams are in the process of being reviewed and revised. I say “not before time” as they’ve been the same now for about 6 years and there is increasingly strong evidence to suggest that the answer papers are quite easy to get hold of in certain parts of the world, if you know who to ask. This is bound to happen, of course, and the longer the papers remain the same, then the greater the likelihood it will happen. So, for that reason alone, some new test papers are long overdue

The IRCA do seem keen to take this opportunity not just to change the papers, but also to review the content, structure and nature of the test. My own opinion is the the OHSMS Lead Auditor papers are a much better test of learning and ability. The questions are tough, yes, and the pass rates are not as high, but the one thing you don’t get with the OHSMS papers is a fluke or a lucky “false positive”. People who pass the OHSMS paper have to earn their achievement. The reason for this is that there are no  “pot luck” type questions. No multiple choice questions, no non-conformity writing questions in section 4. The whole paper requires descriptive answers (some short answer, some longer). So you need to know your stuff and to be able to explain yourself to pass this paper. As I said, a tough test, but a fair test

The QMS papers are different. There is a multiple choice section which can be answered in a “pot luck” type of way. Can we tell whether the person is knowledgeable or just lucky? No we can’t

Section 4 still contains an evaluation section where you get three short paragraphs that may contain evidence of a non-conformity. The student then has to either raise a NCR or describe why the evidence is inconclusive and what further evidence needs to be sought. On the face of it this might seem like a fair enough test. In practice (and those of you who have been through this will know EXACTLY what I mean) the information given is often less than clear and misinterpretation is common. The problem is bad enough for native English speakers but it is multiplied when the paper is taken by non-native English speakers. It can give both lucky false positives and also false negatives when good people just can’t decipher the information in the way that the writer intended. Anyway, this is under review and personally I can’t wait for it to be changed

Should “open book” be scrapped?

The other issue that is up for review is the concept of the “open book” exam. There is some pressure (and I support this view) that the open book exam format needs to be scrapped, and a “closed book plus the standard” format adopted. For me the open book format has been abused by some providers. Courses have been constructed that train to the exam, not train to deliver competences. In practice this means that sections of the student notes and hand-outs are constructed to mirror the answers to all the exam questions. It also means that course exercises can be designed to mirror upcoming exam questions, and twisted just a little. So all the answers may be more or less on the flip-chart output displayed all around the room. It happens. Now the closed book format won’t totally stop these practices, but it will stop given information being copied verbatim on to the paper by people who may or may not have achieved the learning objectives. Like I said, I am a supporter of the closed book format and have been one of those pushing for the change

Tell us what you think

The main purpose of this post is actually to get some feedback from you people about this matter. How do you feel about this? Those of you who have been through the OHSMS papers, or the QMS papers, how did you feel about the content, the questions, the open book format? Whilst the IRCA and training providers are clearly stakeholders in this equation, so are customers. So anyway, if you have a view, let’s hear it and I’ll make sure it gets fed back to inform the review process. Leave your views by adding a comment to the foot of this post

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Improvements in IRCA QMS Lead Auditor exams?